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Wow things are moving fast and I've had little time to check the thread with work lately. I'm gonna keep this brief:
Zerg Macro/Queen Spells
Withholding comment until Kabel has something new implemented, so I can see how it actually looks in-game before offering advice on potential improvements. There are a LOT of ways we could make these abilities work and I hope we play around with several variations for awhile to find the best one. We should all worry about balance later, but as far as that is concerned in regards to Zerg's exponentially faster economy, I stand by my suggestion of making Drones have a longer build time than SCVs/Probes.
Zerg Spellcaster Lineup
Are we actually satisfied with the spells of the Infestor and the Viper right now? Because the more I examine the Infestor the more I see room for improvement and I've got some pitches to make as far as spell ideas if enough people feel the same way (mostly directed towards Kabel).
As for the Viper, I think I have a more interesting variation on Plague, but I'll stick with my promise to not bring up Dark Swarm again until HotS.
Creep
Has anyone felt a significant difference playing with the new Creep regen bonus? Is it leading to more exciting play or could we still do more? It was a big topic of discussion not long ago but I haven't heard anything since the patch.
@Danko
A couple pages back when I responded to your post about removing rally points on eggs and went on a tangent about Inject being a bad mechanic, that wasn't specifically directed at you. Just to clarify. I tend to agree with your point of view on most things actually, like your post about Zergling changes shortly before the patch was pretty much spot on. But messing with the interface is not the direction I think we need to be taking in fixing Zerg macro.
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On October 22 2012 13:20 CapnAmerica wrote:The breakdown (and I may post some replays, just being super lazy atm): +1 Zealot timing comes late enough that Zerg has time to get up to 4 bases, hydra den, ling count to kill off push, as well as drone lead. It's not a stable timing window to hit. A second timing with +1 after an initial zealot poke to force many lings is totally viable though. Stargate play is really hard to pull off. If you go SG and just make some corsairs and don't kill tons of overlords or deny detection while going DTs, you will lose. Reavers are WAY better to immediately tech to. I like to play SG and Twilight Openers, but they're just not as strong. Reavers shut down Hydra Lurk pushes, Hydra Ling pushes, and pure Hydra busts, all of which can smash a Protoss without them unless the Zerg is bad. Stargate into HT takes too long to get running, you will die to any hydra all-in timing. Trust me, we've tested this. Your Zergs just aren't as potent with the hydra bust playstyle, or their macro. Robotics is also better than Twilight because you get a WP fast to scout/gateway harass if he's passive and your reavers come in time to take a safe 3rd with simcity. If Zerg goes Muta, it doesn't happen when they're doing a hydra push. You can straight up win against Ling/Muta ZvP because Zealots are really good, and you can pressure until he snaps. Reavers can be used to target drones and Zerglings. The reps themselves ... I've got reps, I just don't wanna dig through em at 12:19AM to find the right ones.  But basically your Zergs are not playing optimally and as a result your strategies are not improving fast enough to compensate. No BM intended, I just hate watching people get away with stuff that ''doesn't work'' because their opponent doesn't know what to do.
No problem, I understand what you mean because I actually have the same feeling when I watch others peoples playing. But you shall not forget that none of us are pro at this game. At our level, you don't win games by playing perfectly; you win because your opponent makes more mistake than you. I won because Danko didn’t play optimally, but I didn’t play optimally either. In my opinion, it is way too early to say if a strategy does or doesn't work since we can't watch pro games to see how each matchup is supposed to be played. The Reavers opening you described seem very interesting (I will definitively try it) but it may became ineffective if Zergs find ways to deal with it efficiently. For example, I wonder what will happen when Zergs stop playing as greedy as they do currently (with the fast 4th) and instead goes for an earlier lair like they do in BW…
Anyway, thx for your advices (but I’m still waiting for replays…)
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Economy > production. One base play is useless and 2 base attacks are almost an all-in play because if it doesn't so sufficient damage your opponent will survive with a 1 or 2 base advantage. In essence we've killed off the amazing micro experiences we seen in brood war because its too easy to mass up to 100 supply before attacking.
Solution:
A) a flat rate of production increased across the board. Be like 10% or so to increase production so it can compete with economy (increase production = decrease production time)
B) decrease in economy. Reduce harvesters intake by 1-2 minerals on return while leaving all else the same. This will slow down all mass expand plays and bring back 1 base aggression into expand or the viability of strong 2 base timings.
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On October 22 2012 22:30 ArkussSC2 wrote:
Economy > production. One base play is useless and 2 base attacks are almost an all-in play because if it doesn't so sufficient damage your opponent will survive with a 1 or 2 base advantage. In essence we've killed off the amazing micro experiences we seen in brood war because its too easy to mass up to 100 supply before attacking.
Solution:
A) a flat rate of production increased across the board. Be like 10% or so to increase production so it can compete with economy (increase production = decrease production time)
B) decrease in economy. Reduce harvesters intake by 1-2 minerals on return while leaving all else the same. This will slow down all mass expand plays and bring back 1 base aggression into expand or the viability of strong 2 base timings.
Just in case, this is what I meant by 'greedy being standard doesn't feel natural', as you apparently cannot attack/pressure efficiently off one or two bases without sacrificing economy, and that would just put you so far behind that no possible advantages to be gained justify that sacrifice. Besides, again, if greedy is standard, then what constitutes greediness now? Is that even greedy at that point?
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Wasnt basing my post off yours, was basing it off of how starbow has changed and how people talk about micro dominance and desire for intense brood war like moments and how neither are happening. From what I can see serve can still 2 hatch before pool and hold pretty much anything. Strategies that should be hard counters , like a 4gate vs double hatch before pool, just fail horribly. In my opinion that is absurd and demonstrates that economy is far too fast.
Smart phones are pretty retarded. Serve = zerg. Not letting me correct its stupid auto correct -.-
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There was a video posted like 10 pages back of 1 dragoon killing like 25 marines defending a base and only using probe pulls and the shield battery. This video is like a brood war legendary micro video where the terran player played very aggressive and the protoss used superior micro and survived and ended up winning the game. I've yet to see such clutch micro in star bow yet because its too easy to get a 100+ pop
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On October 22 2012 22:30 ArkussSC2 wrote:
Economy > production. One base play is useless and 2 base attacks are almost an all-in play because if it doesn't so sufficient damage your opponent will survive with a 1 or 2 base advantage. In essence we've killed off the amazing micro experiences we seen in brood war because its too easy to mass up to 100 supply before attacking.
Solution:
A) a flat rate of production increased across the board. Be like 10% or so to increase production so it can compete with economy (increase production = decrease production time)
B) decrease in economy. Reduce harvesters intake by 1-2 minerals on return while leaving all else the same. This will slow down all mass expand plays and bring back 1 base aggression into expand or the viability of strong 2 base timings.
As explained by Barrin, the problem you described come from 2 things:
- The increased build time of worker (it make cutting probe almost useless)
- The 2 workers cap per mineral + only 1000 minerals per patch instead of 1500 (make 1base or 2base play way weaker)
I agree with you that Starbow would be more interesting in the early game if we "decrease" economy (going back to 17sec build time for workers but reducing intake per trip by 1) but Kabel doesn't like this idea.
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Russian Federation17 Posts
Go and read 1st post again, lol. Starbow is created for macrogame with more then two bases.
Important to notice: there are probably enough pushes and all-in's in Starbow but we have not discovered them yet. Another timings, another number of bases - I am not surprised WoL strategies in Starbow dont work
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I never said it wasn't meant for macro but the forcing it is a bit excessive.Starbow is supposed to be what Starcraft 2 should have been. The reason 1 base doesn't work is because the economical player can go eco crazy and have plenty of time to get defense before a 1 base attack hits. Kabel doesn't want peope on 3 base all game like Starcraft 2 and that's fine I don't either but the current economy completely shuts down 1 base play in some matchups.
I never said WoL strategies don't work and hense I'm qqing, 1 base play was a Brood War style as well, it gives early map control and puts some pressure on the opponent who opt'd for a faster economy.
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I am aware that the economy isn´t spot on and that something feels a bit fishy with Zerg. I am not adjusting it right now though because of a couple of reasons:
- I wanna give more time for players to explore the current state of the game.
- I need to make sure to understand exactly what the problems really are, so I can add proper solutions.
- Before I enter the state of detail balance I wanna fix the last parts of the Zerg race. (Which I am currently focusing on in the editor.)
Starbow got a review today ^^ (The author sent me the article)
http://monkalizer.blogspot.se/2012/10/review-starbow-gossen.html
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Dafuq is that shit? Did author even read opening post?
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Agreed with Danko. Horrible horrible review :/ and playing against a computer 1v1 isn't enough to make a review. He has no idea what this mod is about and is just taking a guess :/
Yeah Kabel thats fine I'm not saying there has to be an immediate rush to fix it but just throwing it out there that until something is done there is no strong 1 base play and that gets rid of those amazing micro moments from Brood War. 2 base micro is still good but economy is so strong that on 2-3 bases you can just pump out and A move.
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I am uploading a new patch on EU now. The only changes in it are the Queen macro mechanics. This is not to balance things up. This is an attempt to give Zerg something more interesting to do with their macro. If this new stuff feels better than the normal Inject, I will continue the balance work from these abilities instead.
- Inject now doubles the spawn rate of larvas from a hatchery for 30 seconds. (You spawn a larva every 9 second instead of 18)
The way the ability works is by speeding up the Time Scale on the Hatchery. A consequence of this is that Inject would also make upgrades and morphs be researched faster. As a way to overcome that, hatcheries can NOT research anything, train Queens or morph into lair/hive while its under the effect from Inject. You can´t Inject a hatchery that is already doing any of those activities. (So its NOT a new Chrono boost) Zerg now has some decision making to make whether or not its the right time to use Inject and it will hopefully be less of a "braindead mindless activity."
- Queen can speed up the build time of a building being built by 50% for 20 seconds. I wanted to add it as an additonal effect to Transfuse, but nobody would notice it. So I made it a seperate ability just for testing if its useful at all. This gives some more options for the Queen to spend her energy on.
This is merely a "testpatch" and has no other changes in it. I will play as much as possible today and tomorrow and evaluate if this add anything "funnier" to Zerg. Then a real patch will come now in a couple of days. Before I send this one to NA I will test it now for some hours. Maybe it works so bad or is so imbalanced that I must emergency patch it again :p
Before I go to sleep today I will send this to NA, either in this form or with some adjustment.
+ Show Spoiler +But whats the fucking problem with Zerg? Its fine as it is! >.<
No, I dont think it is. Maybe it can be fine in terms of balance, but not in terms of enjoyment. Compared to the other races, Zerg has the least stuff to do with its macro in Starbow! You don´t need to Inject like in SC2 and you don´t have to mess around with the building selection limit on hatcheries as in BW. Calldown SCV and Chrono Boost are improvements of the SC2 spells and can be used in even more situations now! Inject has just been nerfed. In its core, it is indeed a horrible ability with a very narrow use, both in decision and execution. Inject is better than NOT having Inject thought, with the SC2 engine. I just wanna try if anything at all can be adjusted with the Zerg macro to make it slightly more enjoyable and challenging..
Read more here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=304955¤tpage=125#2484
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- Inject now doubles the spawn rate of larvas from a hatchery for 30 seconds. (You spawn a larva every 9 second instead of 18)
The way the ability works is by speeding up the Time Scale on the Hatchery. This means that also upgrades and morphs are researched faster! As a way to overcome that, hatcheries can NOT research anything, train Queens or morph into lair/hive while its under the effect from Inject. You can´t Inject a hatchery that is already doing any of those activities. (So its NOT a new Chrono boost) Zerg now has some decision making to make whether or not its the right time to use Inject and it will hopefully be less of a "braindead mindless activity."
You are aware of that its huge buff? It gives more larvae and usable earlier than current larvae inject. I think values will have to be probably changed.
- Queen can speed up the build time of a building being built by 50% for 20 seconds. I wanted to add it as an additonal effect to Transfuse, but nobody would notice it. So I made it a seperate ability just for testing if its useful at all. This gives some more options for the Queen to spend her energy on.
Well... Long, long, long time ago i have suggested that transfuse to be usable on buildings ^^. Im curious how its gonna work.
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The values might need to be adjusted. I gave it a higher value just so we notice the effect when we test it. Larvas are spawned faster now yes. But it also has two downsides: you can not store more than 3 larvas at each hatchery. And you can not use it when the hatchery is doing other stuff.
You can see stream of games with new changes here: http://sv.twitch.tv/yck7/
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Russian Federation17 Posts
Today i thought about two concerns in zerg Gameplay:
1. We are looking for some new abilities for Queen
2. Nydus Worm has no use with so high tech requirement and with no possibility to build without creep
Well, i have idea: how about connect these two problems in one new interesting ability?
-Allow queen spend mana to create Nydus network. Only after Hive. ~125 manacost.
If you interested, i will think about how design this
P.S: Sry for my english again. I supoose my words are hardly understandable
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Hey, just wanna drop in and say that this is an amazing mod and my friends and all (all masters level players) are having a lot of fun with it!
I'm glad to see this patch, I was winning too easily as zerg before I think, cause the macro for zerg just seemed a lot easier than those of protoss and terran (even though my friends and I play on the same level in sc2). I like how there's a 3 larva limit again because it forces zergs to keep up with their production instead of saving it and producing a lot of units at once.
I think the point of doing that was because in SC2, zerg was reactionary, when you don't need to play that way in Starbow to win.
*Edit* Also, would you consider implementing stop lurkers in some way?
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Kabel! nice patch, but in front page, it would take a patch notes
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Requesting pro T replays, I want to learn how to play this effing game.
Also, I'm mad. http://drop.sc/266986
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On October 23 2012 05:11 SkipToMyLiu wrote:
Hey, just wanna drop in and say that this is an amazing mod and my friends and all (all masters level players) are having a lot of fun with it!
I'm glad to see this patch, I was winning too easily as zerg before I think, cause the macro for zerg just seemed a lot easier than those of protoss and terran (even though my friends and I play on the same level in sc2). I like how there's a 3 larva limit again because it forces zergs to keep up with their production instead of saving it and producing a lot of units at once.
I think the point of doing that was because in SC2, zerg was reactionary, when you don't need to play that way in Starbow to win.
*Edit* Also, would you consider implementing stop lurkers in some way?
Hm, your handle seems so familiar, but I can't seem to remember where I know it from.
@Kabel, +1 for considering implementing stop lurkers!
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EPT
